Well, it’s not “Firefly”, but the CW has announced that it has picked up a science fiction western set on Mars. Presumably it’s also set in the future, though this is coming from the network that brought us 9 seasons of “One Tree Hill”, so for all I know, it’s Victorian era. No, scratch that, that would involved way too much creativity. On the bright side, the series is almost guaranteed to run for however many seasons the creators want, since the CW has not in fact ever cancelled a series. Examples to the contrary will be ignored in the interests of poetic hyperbole.

The series is called “Red”, which I can only assume means that it takes place in the same universe as “That Seventies Show”, and the town was named after Red Foreman, the series protagonist’s great grandfather. This is obviously the simplest explanation for why a show on Mars would be called “Red”.

The obligatory press release describes the show as a “neo-Western drama about the first human settlement on Mars and life on this new frontier, centering on the relationships between the town’s female sheriff, a doctor and a criminal.”

Due to Oxford comma orthodoxy, I choose to believe that the sheriff is both a doctor and a criminal, which would probably be more interesting.

The show is being created by Bruno Heller (“The Mentalist”) and Tom Szentgyorgy (“Journeyman”), which is a strange combination that just might yield delightful results. This means though that in my head the show now features Lucius Vorenus and Patrick Jane, possibly as criminal sheriff doctors, and most definitely dressed as Roman legionaries.